You will avoid if you can, you won't if you can't. Just try your best (truthfully).

I see. In psychodynamic language this would fall under defenses, such as splitting and denial. I want to deny negative qualities in myself, or aggression for example, so I do something unconsciously to make myself think I’m just good and for instance other people are bad (non vegetarians). Defenses almost always lead to problems. So this isn’t really new.

Accept that your self image might not be as finite as you think, and the fragmentation and subsequent temptations decrease.

It’s not doing away with fragmentation, but a way to reduce it in hopes of reducing the temptations that conflict our self-image. He proposes to decrease the value we place on a fixed self-image as a means to reduce fragmentation of the mind. If I hold firm to the belief that “I am a vegetarian” but I consistently feel tempted to eat meat, the fragmentation caused by that dichotomy further fuels to temptation to eat meat. But if I step back and accept that maybe my belief in being a vegetarian isn’t as fundamental as I taught myself to believe, the fragmentation and subsequent temptation of eating meat diminishes.

Thanks for the distinction, I use the terms 'conceptual' and 'nonconceptual' realities when talking about these matters and I'm pretty sure we are pointing to the same thing.

Yes. So, even animals can think and measure. Actually, to a certain point, even plants do. But they can't perceive they're perceiving. That skill is the center of human intelligence. This is where words (and symbols) come from. And from words, all cultures, including sciences.

But I usually divide the perception of perception in 4 skills. One is this skill itself, which we call getting counscious about something, an object or an idea. Then there's 3 things you can do after it (actually more, but 3 major): analogy, go up and go down. We do these 4 things naturally, because, well, it's inherited in our culture. But the more conscious about them, the more intelligence.

Analogy means getting that information and relating to others; go down means getting the information and thinking it in details; go up means realizing that information as part of a set. That's Plato basically.

When a writer or a musician gets a motif to compose, it's going down. When someone sees a bunch of phenomena and realizes a pattern, he's going up. When someone points the direction to get to a place, or when you see someone telling an experience and you sympathize with it, or when you're reading a metaphor or story and apply it to another situation, you're doing analogy.

That was basic lunch for the biggest writers. Dante's treatises on Convivio talk about it. Also Plato's dialogues are that all the time. But we lost the track of this broader meaning of culture, and focused only on scientific production, which is basically only go down. We're not creating new objects (going up), just applying the methodology to new cases (it could be analogy, but mostly just going down).

"That marshmallow experiment he mentioned failed replication. The effect disappears when you account for whether the child's mother has a college degree. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/
So if the marshmallow study actually does measure the ability to avoid temptation, then it suggests that our ability to avoid temptation is a function of our socio-economic back-ground and/or the behaviors of our parents. So it doesn't bode well for our ability to improve temptation avoidance as adults." - Gregory Bogosian; Comment posted on OP's link

The article glossed over this possibility, but it really does seem to be the truth. I have a theory of mind about myself as a separate entity, and have tinkered with my brain over the years to see how it reacts. And I've come to believe that consciousness doesn't really exist. The narrative in my head follows the chemistry in my body, not the other way around. You only need to experience mental illness or psychoactive chemicals to see this in action.

I'm not saying we are separate from the universe. I'm saying that it's not logically correct to infer something about the universe based on the characteristics of parts of the universe (for example, living beings).

Another analogy: Even though you and me are part of Reddit and we both are interested in philosophy, you can't infer that Reddit itself is interested in philosophy.

We want to believe there's some meaning to all of this, so we grasp on to whatever we can.

We might consider that human brains become more susceptible to superstition when damaged, and we might also consider that cosmic rays impact and damage our bodies with much more energy outside of low earth orbit. But that is a sad and scary thing to contemplate, so we choose the narrative that lets us sleep at night.

Everything is a subjective experience, so if the ontology of reality is inexorably changed for me, it still counts. Spiritual endeavour are about finding equanimity in your existence, and defining a purpose for yourself. Not postulating theories of science.

I love Advaita Vedanta for this. It separates the world into a transactional reality, which is the world we're all so familiar with, and a transcendental reality, that is completely subjective, indescribable. So all my spiritual realizations are placed in the bucket of transcendental reality. And scientists can happily go about making discoveries in the transactional reality without ever affecting my "beliefs".

An experiential insight of how the mind works can do wonders on how you live your life but it's just that, a better understanding of what you really are. It's super important imho, but even if you were the most accomplished monk, I don't see how you can draw from that ontological conclusions about the nature of reality.

What if there are other consciousnesses in other parts of the universe? We might be just a perspective. You can't deny that we are part of the universe and that we are conscious. Our brains are said to be the only part of the human which is conscious, but we don't say that the brain is an entity of it's own. Our brain would not be able to survive without our bodies and we would not be able to survive without the universe. Because there isn't really a distinction between them.

I believe that saying we are a separate entity from the universe is incredibly arrogant and ooze of self-importance. It's like saying animals don't have consciousness when every indication point to that they do. We are just a small speck in this wide, wide cosmos. An unique speck, but a speck non-the less.

>Regardless of my own personal beliefs I think it’s important to recognize that this question of the primacy of mind or matter is in fact a question of belief as there is no way (as of yet) to conclusively dismiss either theory.

You can have an unintended experience that can jolt you out of your current beliefs. Isn't it what this article is about? A highly decorated astronaut, who had no such predilection to spirituality, yet an indescribable experience turned him towards it.

Or take Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) who was a Harvard professor of psychology, yet went on to become a baba because of the experiences he had on psilocybin, and the resolution he found for his own inner turmoil in Hinduism?

How do you explain that with the assertion you've made.

>This “problem” stands in reproach to the staunch materialist atheists who take such pride in being so purely logical and scientific (and by implication smarter & better). The simple fact is that their outlook is based on belief too.

The word you're looking for is "dogma". And yes, the materialist atheist are as dogmatic as the religious nuts when it comes to their vehemence. I should know, I was one of them.

No.

The boring response to this is that you won't experience this oneness directly unless you have significant changes in the working of your mind. As long as your ego or identity is strong, you will run around in circles trying to grasp at that oneness. But in reality, the only thing needed is softening of that ego that wants to prove it wrong.

For the universe to want anything, it would need to be conscious as a whole. You can't say that a whole wants something just because there are smaller parts of it who have desires. That's like saying the world wants to buy iPhones just because there are humans in the world who want to buy iPhone. It's an attribution error.

Why is that so-called "epiphany" presumed to be the canonical, authoritative experience, somehow informative of some deep truth as opposed to merely a momentary illusion?

Why is it assumed to be any more "valid" than the ordinary kind of conscious experience?

Sure, the former is rarer, and it's often accompanied by a sense of awe and profundity, but none of that gives any credence to it, really.

Why do you think it's similar to cars moving in a city?

Yes, and but doesn't make the universe conscious.

Why is that distinction so hard to understand?

It's like saying cars move, and cars are part of the city, so the city is moving. No, despite the poetic value of that claim, it's simply absurd.

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We are part of the universe, and conscious.

Because I dont think the universe is conscious.

Its like a program running itself in a defined set of rules. And somehow the predetermined rules made it possible that some of its matter became alive

Why don't you think the universe want something?

Yes, I agree, there is an is-ought distinction. I'm not a moral naturalist. I discuss the values necessary to create morality here. Morality is those principles that cannot be reasonably rejected in a hypothetical bargain behind a veil of ignorance. You have to value human freedom and reason to be motivated to obey that agreement, but morality exists in that sense whether or not someone has the requisite values to be moral.

>The questions "would you force someone to maximise their personal happiness" and "would you force someone to increase the happiness of humans collectively" are incomparable.

If you are a utilitarian, and welfare is your only standard of ethics, then there is no difference. Both questions only weigh an increase in welfare against coercion. I would argue that coercion in both questions is unjustified, but is there a principled distinction that you have between the two questions where they should be differentiated?